Diabetes

[Wilhelm]

Is type 2 diabetes a chronic, irreversable disease?
If a person wanted to learn more about reversing diabetes, they wouldn't have to look too hard.

Just going to share the very breif introduction to the idea from Dr. Jason Fung.
He has lectures online, and treats patients in a clinical setting.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/how-to-rever ... deo-course

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https://www.torontometabolicclinic.com/
https://idmprogram.com/

[alek]

From my very little understanding of the subject, I’ve read that if your beta cells aren’t totally destroyed, then consuming 600–800 liquid calories per day for 6 to 8 weeks will reverse damage to them. That’s 600 to 800 calories total per day, not in addition to solids.

On phone; don’t have source handy. If anyone interested, I’ll try to find it.

[rjharris]

I've heard of this, but, at the risk of asking the obvious, if it works, why is this not standard protocol for T2? Just compliance? I get that it's hard to do for 6-8 weeks, but if I had the beetis, and this actually cured it, I'd kind a way to get through it.

[Paul]

My mother-in-law was in the early stages. She had gastric bypass done, cut carbs, lost weight and has been diabeetus free for years now. She's not exactly the most motivated or healthy person out there, but she sure didn't want to be chronically ill.

A guy I know was just diagnosed and seems happy to add it to his list of excuses for not working and being generally lazy. He gladly loads up on medications so his "diet" and "lifestyle" are affected as little as possible.

On top of being 100% preventable, it seems that it's not really a terminal condition unless you've just accepted it for long enough that you run out of beta cells. It slowly progresses from asymptomatic to deadly based entirely on lifestyle choices.

[Ragholmes]

Is type 2 diabetes a chronic, irreversable disease?

Absolutely not!
I was a little surprised to even see the question. I assumed this was fairly common knowledge. Lifestyle (Diet and Exercise) changes will reverse DM II

[Ragholmes]

A guy I know was just diagnosed and seems happy to add it to his list of excuses for not working and being generally lazy. He gladly loads up on medications so his "diet" and "lifestyle" are affected as little as possible.

People like this need to come to work with me for a day and see what Diabetes does long term.
I think the problem is that it starts off as very inconvenient, progressing very slowly to life threatening. People just accept the gradual decline over time, even when they start getting body parts amputated. First its a toe, then a couple other toes, then half the foot because the surgical wounds wont heal, then the whole foot, then the lower leg etc.
If the Doctor pulled out a bone saw the day they were diagnosed with diabetes and said ok now I'm gonna chop off your leg people might start their diet that night.

[Wilhelm]

I've heard of this, but, at the risk of asking the obvious, if it works, why is this not standard protocol for T2? Just compliance? I get that it's hard to do for 6-8 weeks, but if I had the beetis, and this actually cured it, I'd kind a way to get through it.

I've had one brief face to face conversation regarding this.
Woman in line at the pharmacy. I could hear her hashing out an insurance thing regarding her test strips.
While the person helping her was on the phone to someone, i said hi, and mentioned cutting carbs.
The woman basically said "Yeah, yeah, heard of it, but i want to live life."

OK, enjoy your donuts.

[rjharris]

I've had one brief face to face conversation regarding this.
Woman in line at the pharmacy. I could hear her hashing out an insurance thing regarding her test strips.
While the person helping her was on the phone to someone, i said hi, and mentioned cutting carbs.
The woman basically said "Yeah, yeah, heard of it, but i want to live life."

OK, enjoy your donuts.

I mean, I totally believe this. My uncle had T2. He was fine when he was with my aunt, but whenever she wasn't around, he'd sneak whatever sugary. He somehow managed to live to be somewhere in the ballpark of 83 I think, but his quality of life wasn't great. Lots of hospital visits, eyesight deteriorated to the point where he couldn't read or tinker in the shop, etc. So sad.

It's just .... surprising to me. I'm pretty glad I don't have a sweet tooth.

[Jay870]

Both my parent in-laws are insulin dependent type 2. Both were diagnosed early on and could have reversed it easily.

MIL has been on insulin for 10+ years as a guess. She's got to be pushing 350lbs at 5'2". Can barely get out of a chair, has to ride the whopper chopper at stores because she can't go more than 20 steps. For that matter she gets winded talking. Is in stage 4 kidney failure.

FIL actually put up a good fight for a few years but I think watching his wife decline just caused him to say fuck it and he is a few years behind her on the same schedule. They claim they're following a physician approved diet... BULL. SHIT. Everytime they actually drag their asses out of their house they get fast food. Its a "treat" since they don't get out of the house that often. The food they have in the house is even worse. 90% processed simple carbs... chips, pretzels, crackers, pasta, bread etc. Most of the other 10% is whole milk and bacon. "But its not sugary". Ugh.

They're very nice people so I kind of hate the fact that I can hardly stand to be around them, esp the MIL.

[alek]

From my very little understanding of the subject, I’ve read that if your beta cells aren’t totally destroyed, then consuming 600–800 liquid calories per day for 6 to 8 weeks will reverse damage to them. That’s 600 to 800 calories total per day, not in addition to solids.

On phone; don’t have source handy. If anyone interested, I’ll try to find it.

Just abstract, but

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... lsca1=tlpr

Decent article/write-up about it

https://www.endocrineweb.com/news/diabe ... s-diabetes

[MPhelps]

I've heard a whole food plant based diet can reverse Type 2 beetus. Of course that claim is often applied to every disease.

I think the issue with curing type 2 diabetes is the patients like eating shit and often like being sick.

[alek]

I've heard of this, but, at the risk of asking the obvious, if it works, why is this not standard protocol for T2? Just compliance? I get that it's hard to do for 6-8 weeks, but if I had the beetis, and this actually cured it, I'd kind a way to get through it.

Apparently IT IS the standard protocol, at least according to the docs in the article I linked above. And I imagine compliance, or lack thereof, is the reason any weight loss protocol is necessary.

[rjharris]

Apparently IT IS the standard protocol, at least according to the docs in the article I linked above. And I imagine compliance, or lack thereof, is the reason any weight loss protocol is necessary.

Jeez. 86% of people who lost 33+ lbs went into remission and stayed that way after a year. That's fuckin' wild.

[alek]

Apparently IT IS the standard protocol, at least according to the docs in the article I linked above. And I imagine compliance, or lack thereof, is the reason any weight loss protocol is necessary.

Jeez. 86% of people who lost 33+ lbs went into remission and stayed that way after a year. That's fuckin' wild.

Very wild!

For those that don't want to read the article, here's a snippet that I find interesting:

From the ArticleShow

"Why does this work to reverse diabetes in some?

"What happens is the two main abnormalities of type 2 diabetes are both sorted out when weight loss occurs," Dr. Taylor says. "These two abnormalities are brought about by too much fat inside the liver cells and too much fat inside the insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas."

"One of the jobs of the liver is to hand out fat to the rest of the body," he says, When it hands out too much, problems arise.

The liver changes are dramatic, he says. The effects in the pancreas decrease more gradually. With less fat flooding the pancreas, ''the insulin-secreting cells wake up and go back to being able to respond rapidly to produce insulin," Dr. Taylor says. "It's all due to the weight loss.''

While the study participants had all been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the past six years, Dr. Taylor says that those diagnosed within the past four years who go on this type of extreme diet have a very good chance of reversing diabetes."

I'm ignorant of most everything involving diabetes, but I thought the onset, management, and treatment/reversal would be much more complex. It does seem a little too simple to say it's all about fat inside the pancreas, but again, I essentially know nothing about it. If @Austin wouldn't mind, can you provide some clarification? Or is there a podcast or similar out there where BBM has talked about it? I just looked at the titles of all the YouTube videos, but I didn't see diabetes anywhere; possibly in the two-part podcast about obesity?

[Austin]

I'm ignorant of most everything involving diabetes, but I thought the onset, management, and treatment/reversal would be much more complex. It does seem a little too simple to say it's all about fat inside the pancreas, but again, I essentially know nothing about it. If @Austin wouldn't mind, can you provide some clarification? Or is there a podcast or similar out there where BBM has talked about it? I just looked at the titles of all the YouTube videos, but I didn't see diabetes anywhere; possibly in the two-part podcast about obesity?

While it can be summarized as the result of "systemic energy overload" (I've also seen it described as "chronic energy poisoning"), you are correct that the pathophysiology is quite complex. I unfortunately don't have time to get into it in detail here, but the description quoted refers to the idea of "lipotoxicity".

Here's a paper on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28585204 (can access via Sci Hub https://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/978-3-319-48382-5_12 )

Weight loss is indeed the first-line recommended management, and aggressive interventions like these (or gastric bypass surgery) can cure diabetes in a substantial proportion - though still not ALL - individuals.

[chrisd]

Weight loss is indeed the first-line recommended management, and aggressive interventions like these (or gastric bypass surgery) can cure diabetes in a substantial proportion - though still not ALL - individuals.

Indeed, not all. A friend of mine has developed type II. I was surprised, she wasn't. she has a family history of getting diabetes in old age, she's just in her sixties. Thin as a rake, physically active, pancreas is quitting.

[quark]

A relative had uncomfortably high A1C levels, somewhere between pre-diabetes and diabetes levels. Her doctor told her to lose weight and limit carbs. She lost a lot of weight, returning to a normal if not low weight, and cut carbs way back. Her next blood test came back clean. The doctor said she was the first patient the doctor had ever seen who actually lost a large amount of weight as suggested, and this was a doctor who had been in practice for a long time.

[Austin]

Indeed, not all. A friend of mine has developed type II. I was surprised, she wasn't. she has a family history of getting diabetes in old age, she's just in her sixties. Thin as a rake, physically active, pancreas is quitting.

Yep, sometimes this happens since there can be a substantial genetic component (as mentioned above, it's more complex than just "fat in the pancreas"). Additionally, she may not actually have type II diabetes -- could be something like LADA.

A relative had uncomfortably high A1C levels, somewhere between pre-diabetes and diabetes levels. Her doctor told her to lose weight and limit carbs. She lost a lot of weight, returning to a normal if not low weight, and cut carbs way back. Her next blood test came back clean. The doctor said she was the first patient the doctor had ever seen who actually lost a large amount of weight as suggested, and this was a doctor who had been in practice for a long time.

Indeed, this is not the norm in the real world.

[alek]

I'm ignorant of most everything involving diabetes, but I thought the onset, management, and treatment/reversal would be much more complex. It does seem a little too simple to say it's all about fat inside the pancreas, but again, I essentially know nothing about it. If @Austin wouldn't mind, can you provide some clarification? Or is there a podcast or similar out there where BBM has talked about it? I just looked at the titles of all the YouTube videos, but I didn't see diabetes anywhere; possibly in the two-part podcast about obesity?

While it can be summarized as the result of "systemic energy overload" (I've also seen it described as "chronic energy poisoning"), you are correct that the pathophysiology is quite complex. I unfortunately don't have time to get into it in detail here, but the description quoted refers to the idea of "lipotoxicity".

Here's a paper on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28585204 (can access via Sci Hub https://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/978-3-319-48382-5_12 )

Weight loss is indeed the first-line recommended management, and aggressive interventions like these (or gastric bypass surgery) can cure diabetes in a substantial proportion - though still not ALL - individuals.

Thanks!!

If BBM doesn’t have plans to talk about diabetes in a podcast format soon, I humbly request you consider it. I’m sure I’m not the only one that would highly appreciate your detailed thoughts and perspectives.

...not that you don’t have enough things to do already, amirite??